Republican state legislators are “ready, willing and able” to help redraw the election districts that a judge ruled were illegally gerrymandered by Democrats, they said Friday — as the head of the state GOP singled out Gov. Kathy Hochul for blame.
“It’s not just a gerrymander, we’re calling it a Hochulmander,” state Republican Party Chairman Nick Langworthy said, blaming the gerrymandering on Hochul and saying she wanted to try to preserve the Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives.
“Kathy Hochul is directly responsible for the outcome of these maps…She was going to use her power to gerrymander districts to make sure that [President] Joe Biden has the votes for his disastrous agenda.”
State Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt (R-Lockport) and 20 other Republican legislators offered to meet Monday with Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-The Bronx) in the state Capitol in Albany.
But a spokesman for Stewart-Cousins said there would be no negotiations pending an appeal of Thursday’s court decision that tossed out the redistricting plan approved in February by Hochul and fellow Democrats who control both chambers of the Legislature.
Steuben County state Supreme Court Justice Patrick McAllister gave lawmakers an April 11 deadline to come up with new, bipartisan maps or the job will be turned over to a court-appointed “neutral expert.”
McAllister warned that process would not only be “expensive” for taxpayers but might not produce a congressional map by Aug. 23, which he said is the last possible date to hold party primaries ahead of the Nov. 8 elections.
“In light of this decision, we look forward to working together to create maps that most accurately represent the voters of New York State,” Ortt and the Republicans said in a letter to the Democratic leaders.
“We are ready, willing and able.”
Republicans have said the maps drawn by Democrats could cost the GOP three seats in Congress currently held by freshman Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island, Brooklyn), Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-Binghamton) and Rep. John Katko (R-Auburn), who is retiring.
Democrats now outnumber Republicans 221-209 in the House, with five seats vacant.
In Malliotakis’ case, her district was carved up to remove conservative-leaning neighborhoods in southern Brooklyn, including Dyker Heights and Bath Beach, while adding Sunset Park, Gowanus and Park Slope, some of the borough’s most liberal areas.
The conservative parts were tacked on to the meandering, S-shaped Manhattan district represented by Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who’s served in Congress for three decades.
Spokespeople for Hochul and Heastie didn’t immediately return requests for comment.